By Carole Hawkins, [email protected]
How do you build a real estate conference from 400 sticky notes?
“We move them,” said Kim Knapp.
It was true. The sticky notes Realtors stuck on the bulletin board earlier in the day had migrated and coalesced by subject. There was — how to market on Facebook, how to find leads for buying and selling homes, how to manage a contacts database.
Knapp was one of the volunteer organizers from this year’s REBar Boot Camp in Jacksonville.
Co-sponsored by the Northeast Florida Realtors Association, the annual “unconference” has no agenda. Instead, participants fill out sticky notes at the registration table, sharing their problems and questions about running a business.
The volunteer team had 30 minutes to figure out the day’s first six seminars.
“It’s like a puzzle and people have just thrown all of the pieces up in the air,” Realtor Kim Knapp said, laughing. “It’s a little bit crazy. But that’s the spirit of REBar Camp. It’s organized chaos.”
The event, which sold over 600 tickets, drew a lot of new faces this year. About half had never attended a REBar Camp before.
Their interests reflected changes in the area’s market. There weren’t as many questions about distressed properties, short sales and REO’s, Knapp said.
Instead, people were focused on prospecting for their businesses, asking about how to build a pipeline of customers and how to boost their brand.